I ordered the BlueRail board Tuesday and got it Thursday, 2 days coast-to-coast ain't bad.

Had it installed a couple hours later. I ran it for 2+ hours yesterday and so far the Williams E7 is running great, no problem with the 2 motors.

I mounted the on/off switch and charging jack thru the rear door. Painted they're hardly noticeable and with a diaphragm mounted you can't see them unless you get directly behind the engine. I'm using a 9.6v NiMh, 2000Mah 1.1"x1.1"x3.9" battery pack I got from All-Battery. The circuit board and battery fit nicely between the motors.

While I had the E7 apart I replaced the diecast fuel/water tank with one I made from styrene, not sure if you can see it in that video.

Bachmann needs to start offering the Williams line with the bluetooth boards

Bachmann needs to start offering the Williams line with the bluetooth boards

BobD.

I agree 100%, Bob. I think they would be very strong sellers. I certainly would buy them.

Yes indeed Joe. I'm having a blast running my WbB E7 with plans to install the BlueRail board in one of the new-ish WbB semi-scale 4-6-2 soon IF there's room in the tender for the battery. I'll be checking that soon.

I think this bluetooth thing may open the door for folks of all ages to get excited about trains. I know it has for this young train buff (I'll be 65 this month !).

Bachmann needs to start offering the Williams line with the bluetooth boards

BobD.

I agree 100%, Bob. I think they would be very strong sellers. I certainly would buy them.

Yes indeed Joe. I'm having a blast running my WbB E7 with plans to install the BlueRail board in one of the new-ish WbB semi-scale 4-6-2 soon IF there's room in the tender for the battery. I'll be checking that soon.

I think this bluetooth thing may open the door for folks of all ages to get excited about trains. I know it has for this young train buff (I'll be 65 this month !).

BobD.

Happy Birthday Bob! I'm a little older than you (67 in January) and I know what you mean. I have 3 Lionel LionChief Plus locos (very similar to bluetooth) and love them. I'm hoping WBB will offer locos with bluetooth already installed very soon. It's so much more fun than running trains conventionally.

Was the install of the BlueRail board difficult? I'm not that good with electronics and a little wary of trying an installation myself.

Not hard, but I did spend some time back in the 70s-80s as an electronics tech at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, so I know my way around a soldering iron.

The instructions under "Our First Board" that BlueRail has on their site are pretty straight forward. There's 2 wires that go to the battery assembly (battery, on/off switch, charging jack), 2 wires going to the motor, and 3 wires going to the headlight/rear light LEDs (1 of the wires is regulated +12v). Buy the board with the battery wires already wired in and get the 9 pin to 8 pin cable (although I cut the 8 pin board off and solder the wires to where I want them to go).

That's basically it, there are more wires you can use but that's up to what you have in your engine. I used the wire(s) for ACC3 to light a "Mars" light on my Williams E7. Actually it's a LED with the lens colored red using a red sharpie, need to get one of those Mars Light simulators from N Gineering to replace the LED.

Probably the hardest thing is finding a spot in your loco to put things and trying to keep the wiring so it doesn't look like a bowl of spaghetti.

I usually try to find a battery pack of the voltage and amperage I need and go from there. I just put a 12v, 2000Mah battery pack in a G gauge Bachmann 4-6-0, but my O-scale engines use either a 9.6v, 2000Mah NiMh or 11.1v, 2200Mah LiPo battery pack from All-Battery. The 12v pack I just bought I got from their Ebay site for $22 shipped, I've gotten the 9.6v for $15 shipped in the past. Not a bad price. I'm going to look into how much it costs to make your own battery packs to see if that way is cheaper or worth the effort.

Look at the videos they have on the BlueRail site to see what's been done so far.

Oh...Got my 3rd BlueRail board the other day and now have the new-ish WbB semi-scale 4-6-2 wired up, just haven't taken a video yet, but it's running as expected so far.

Also got a Gems 2" Bluetooth speaker from Target for $5 the other day. I can put it on/in a flat car or gondola and play the sounds thru it vice thru my Ipad and it sounds great. Need to figure out how to move the guts from the speaker housing into the engine.